NJ Sandy milestone: Last shuttered town reopens

MANTOLOKING, N.J. (AP) — For the first time in almost four months, residents are living again in Mantoloking, a well-off New Jersey beach town that suffered some of the worst of Superstorm Sandy's wrath.

Town officials allowed residents to return Friday to stay. It's the last New Jersey community to hit that milestone since the storm.

"It's a wonderful feeling to be back in your own home after four months of not knowing what your future is," said Sandra Witkowski, who returned with her husband, Stan.

But it's also difficult to be in a place with such devastation. When she looks out her window, Witkowski sees one house wrecked by the storm and bare land where another used to be.

All 521 homes in the community an hour and a half's drive south of New York City were damaged. About 60 were swept away entirely and hundreds more will have to be demolished. Most of the homes are grand summer getaways. Only about 100 residents typically stay through the winter.

A damaged bayside home rests on a wheeled frame waiting to be raised in Mantoloking, N.J., Friday, F …

The community, 2½-miles long and just a couple blocks wide with the Atlantic Ocean on the east and Barnegat Bay on the west, was cut in two by an inlet during the storm. That was fixed quickly, and Route 35, the main road through the barrier island community, has also reopened after repairs.

Across New Jersey, the storm destroyed about 30,000 homes and caused an estimated $37 billion in damage.

The destruction in Mantoloking meant that not many residents were able to take advantage of the permission to return on Friday.

"It's quiet in the winter, which we like," Sandra Witkowski said. But now? "It's really quiet."

The Witkowskis' home needed major repairs to the electrical and other systems, but because it's built on pilings, water did not get into the house.

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